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A6 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday November 17, 1999 T h e O a k v il l e B e a v e r Ian Oliver Publisher Neil Oliver .Associate Publisher Norman Alexander Editor Kelly Montague, Advertising Director Martin Doherty Circulation Director Ten Casas Office Manager Mark Dills Production Manager Riziero Vertofli Director o fPhotography M etroland P rinting. P ubishing & D istributing L id ., includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser. A isto n HeraKVCouner, Bame Advance. Barry's Bay This W eek. B olton Enterprise. Bram pton G uardan, B u tn g to n Post. B ering!on Shopping News. C ity Parent. CoingwoodAAfesaga Connection. East York M rror. Erin A dvocate'C ountry Routes. Etobicoke G uardan. Ram boroucfi Post. Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, H e rn ia Busness Tm es. K ingston T his W eek. Lindsay This W eek, M arkham E cnom ist & Sun. M idland/P enetang uishine M irro r. M ilto n C anadian C ham pion. M ilton Shopping Nows. M scissauga Business Tm es. M csissauga News. Napanee G uide. N ew m arket/Atrora Era-Banner. N orthurrberiand News. N orth York M rrar. C ekvie Beaver. O akvie Shopping News, O tdtm ers Hockey News. Cnka Today. O shaw aW itby/O arington Port Perry This W eek. Owen S a n d Tribune. P eterborough T his W eek. P icto n C ounty G uide. R ichm ond H ill/Thom hill/V aughan Liberal. S carborough M irror. StouffviBe/U xbridge T rtxn e . Forever Y txng. C ity o l Ybrk Guardan OPINION RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association ^ O V A Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers ol America 467 Speers Rd., Oakville O nt L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-2809 Circulation: 845-9742 SK Editorials Think rail Wouldn't it be nice if provincial and `TO' politicos did a little less navelgazing and a little more work. We're getting a little fed-up with Mayor Mel's great visionary concepts for his city, that as we plebes out here in the sticks, know is the centre of the uni verse. Oh yeh, by the way, when Mel refers to his city, he means everywhere from Burlington to Oshawa and north to Barrie. That's another thing about Mel, he thinks he's master of all he surveys. The problem is people. Too many with too many cars and no alternatives to moving around the (what we prefer to be called) the Greater Toronto Area. Item: Gary McNeil, the new GO Transit boss wants to expand his network of rail lines and level of service but naively believes that the province and even (dare we say it?) the feds, will ante up some big bucks to make it happen. A start on expansion has been made with news this week that GO'S board of directors has approved a plan to expand its all-day train service to the east and west extremities of the network. Item: One need only stand (we dare you!) on the Oakville GO Station plat form in the early dark of the day to see what a great job of marketing GO Transit has done. Too good, in fact. We now have the demand running (literal ly) ahead of the supply. Item:The province, in a fit of fiscal pique, decided that it would privatize major new highway ventures. Enter the Hwy. 407 ETR system. It was late in coming but we're pleased to see it rolling now. But it was a huge planning mis take not to have constructed parallel railbeds for future commuter trains. There's no real reason for it, yet no one has addressed the issue. So on the one hand we've got GO officials and Toronto saying more transit is needed and on the other, the province is still paying tribute to the automobile. If the province wants to do something meaningful, get moving on roughedin rail lines on new projects to give people some alternative to the car. The cur rent GTA situation is a transportation farce. All rails lead to Toronto leaving anyone wanting to go anywhere else, relying on the car. Certainly it's time for a paradigm shift in transportation thinking. HAVEN'T YOU HEARD ABOUT ONTARIO'S NEW A N TI-P A N H A N D LIN G LAW?/ j------- Letters to the Editor The Oakville Beaver welcomes your comments. All letters must be typed, signed and include the writer's address and phone number. Send to: Letters to the Editor, The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, Ont. L6K 3S4 French immersion school a mistake In yet another case of, just what the heck is the Halton D istrict Public School Board thinking of. I wish to express my concerns over their latest attempt of providing quality education to the general public. Recently, our family has moved to the Oakville area and one of the key factors in our decision was to be able to provide a school for our children that was within their neighbourhood. We bought a mature home that had a public school within walking distance and looked forward to our children obtaining their education close to home. The school prided itself, via the web, for offering a dual-track curriculum for both French Immersion and English students. Now this school has been pro posed to becom e a French Immersion Only school by the board and children wishing an English education will have to attend one of two other schools within the community. Although these other schools are termed walking distance from our house, I would not make my dog walk that far on a good day. How can it be that in the province of Ontario, an Englishspeaking student can not obtain an education at a neighbourhood pub lic school? If this were Quebec, there would be an outrage and defi nite mayhem at even the notion of Letter of the Week Kudos for Oakville MPP Gary Carr At last (Oakville MPP) Gary Carr, newly-elected Speaker of the Ontario Legislature, has a position worthy of his talents. He is the most powerful person in the Legislature; can tell someone to sit down and pipe down and have them escorted from the Chamber. The fact that his constituents in Oakville supported him and his peers in the Legislature elected him is a measure of the man. He taught me a lesson in civics. I will never forget. I had appeared before the Justice Committee on Feb. 14, 1991, accompanied by another presenter. When I finished, no one seemed to have a question. As I glanced down the table at the blank stares, I thought: "they didn't even comprehend a word I said." Then a young man began to ques tion me. I was astounded by his mental acuity. In the next two days I had two calls from Gary and more from his staff. He asked permission to pass our inform ation to the M inister of Education, NDP's Marion Boyd. She was going bonkers trying to get a handle on the thousands of students who were not attending school, but were still getting their support payments and their schools were getting their per diem rates. We had paid $3,000 to a lawyer to get this information. I gave him permission to use what he wanted. The big impression which sold me on Gary was the fact that here was a blue blood Conservative who was helping an NDP minister and in turn help every taxpayer. Every member should follow his example-stop the partisan snip ing and start working for the peo ple. Anne Demeter their children's language rights being violated. I urge residents that support the public school board via your tax dollars to please phone the board and let them know how you feel about their plans of denying English education availability to the general public. I have contacted the board with a solution to the problem and have not received any response. I pro posed that in order to maintain the dual-track program currently in place at our neighbourhood school, the French Immersion program be expanded to schools that were slat ed to be closed south of the QEW in Oakville. In offering dual-track schools within this area, closures for these schools could be avoided, as well as providing more space for the growth of French Immersion enrollment. This way, we can unite together the best of both opportuni ties without alienation of either program. Let's not support sepa ratism within our school system. It is bad enough that our country is at odds over language disputes, let us not reinforce this in our children. Karen Lynn M cCallum A call to end child pornography My name is Jacquie Northcott I am 15 years-old and a member of a group called Youth Making a Difference (YMAD). As a group, we have been collecting signatures for a petition against child pornography. Being a Canadian citizen is the only requirement for signing the petition and we encourage everyone 12-years-of-age and older to do so. Our goal is to collect one million signatures nationally, to prove to the Canadian government that the citizens of Canada are against the legalized possession of child pornography. This will hopefully help to reverse the legal ization in British Columbia and encourage other provinces to keep child pornography a crime. If the law doesn't protect children, who will? I am writing this letter to challenge Oakville to take a stand and help us. We are challenging every community across the country, in the month of November, to collect one-half of their population in signatures. Local businesses, community centres, churches, youth groups and students can get involved. We know that every community is able to do its part. Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, a town of 1,900 people col lected almost 1,300 signatures. If they can do it, so can the rest of us. By helping us collect signatures, you are helping protect children. November is a month to remember our freedoms, and those who fought for them. If child pornography becomes legal in Canada, then the freedoms our parents and grand parents fought for would be thrown away. We must contin ue to fight to protect the children and their rights and free doms. Children are the future. If we allow them to be abused in this fashion, and believe that it is okay, then what kind of future will this country have? We need everyone's help. Please call or fax us at: (204) 896-YMAD or e-mail us at ymad@home.com The text of the Youth Making A Difference Petition: To the honourable House of Commons of Canada in Parliament Assembled, We the undersigned citizens of Canada, draw the attention of the House to the following: WHEREAS Canadians are horrified by pornography which depicts children, and are astounded by legal determina tions that possession of such pornography is not criminal; , AND WHEREAS it is the duty of Parliament, through the enactment and enforcement of the Criminal Code, to protect the most vulnerable members of society from sexual abuse; THEREFORE your petitioners pray that Parliament takes all measures necessary to ensure that possession of child pornography remains a serious criminal offence, and that fed eral police forces be directed to give priority to enforcing this law' for the protection of children. (Signatures and addresses must be included.) Completed forms can be returned to CFAC, Box 193, Stn.L, Winnipeg, MB. R3H OZ5 Jacq uie Northcott C an ad a le a d in g th e w o rld w h e n it c o m es to th in g s o rg a n ic RE: Alex Eberspaecher's Article About Organic Wine, Oakville Beaver, Fri. Nov. 12th, 1999 Unfortunately, Mr. Eberspaecher is unin formed regarding the current state of stan dardization of organic products and the words "certified organic" as they are current ly used in Canada. In April of this year "cer tified organic" and "Canada Organic" stan dards w ere ac cep ted by the C anadian General Standards Board (CGSB). We are proudly the first country in the world to have national standards accepted by our government. This, after more than 15 years of debate, industry input and work on definitions, standards and processes to assure the public that "certified organic" has mean ing and value to the consumer. "Certified Organic," now legally defined in Canada, means that the product has been grown according to standards deemed safe for the environment and for the farmer work ers. F urther, organic is a System of Agriculture rather than the "withouts" i.e. without sprays, without herbicides, without whatever. C u rren tly , the S tandard for O rganic Agriculture (CAN/CGSB-32.310) outlines p rin c ip le s for organic a g ric u ltu re that endorse ecologically sound production and management practices to enhance the quality and sustainability of the environment and to ensure the ethical treatment of livestock. Certified Organic products are third party inspected by credible agencies like OCIA (the O rganic C rop Im provem ent Association), OGBA (Organic Growers and B uyers A sso cia tio n ), QAI (Q uality Assurance International) and several others throughout North America who used welltrained certified organic farm inspectors. A little research (try www.coab.ca) or a call to the M inistry o f A g ric u ltu re (in Guelph, speak to Hugh Martin), federally speak to M arion G aucher, N ational Standards Board Committee Secretary in O ttaw a at 819-956-1594 will allow Mr. Eberspaecher to become more informed and perhaps quell his fears. Organic wine can readily join the families of fine wines offered throughout the world and can offer discerning wine drinkers an option for an excellent product with assur ance of growing methods. Lorri King Canadian Retail Sector Representative o f Canadian Organic Standards Board Member o f the CGSC Organic Standards Committee Past VP o f the Organic Trade Association Pud S A N D W IC HIS W KIND OF IN M f LUNCH, by Steve Nease G r o u p 's v ie w a m b ig u o u s D A D ? It has come to my attention that I may have misrepresent ed GARA, the Glen Abbey Residents Association, in my let ter to the editor from several weeks ago. The GARA Briefs from which I received my information stated: "The RCGA has expressed interest in Bronte Creek Provincial Park as a possible location for a 45-hole golf course and national train ing centre. GARA agrees to support the RCGA and its endeavor to remain in Halton Region." I apologize for my misstatement. However, it seems to me that GARA's statem ent is som ewhat ambiguous. Does GARA support the RCGA and its endeavor to use Bronte Creek Park as a golf course, or does it not? Renee Sandelow sky