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OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, October 22, 2009 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary NEIL OLIVER Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Guest Columnist Refs calls questioned Ted Chudleigh, Halton MPP he government is like a referee. When a referee is doing the job, nobody notices, players move up and down the ice, calls are made, penalties are assessed and the game continues. Likewise in government, public administration is handled and citizens get on with their lives. Only when a refTed Chudleigh eree misses an important call, or governments bungle the public's business, does anyone notice. Right now, everyone is noticing the McGuinty government here in Ontario. It has bungled its responsibilities so thoroughly, the rules of the game are being ignored with impunity. At eHealth Ontario alone, there have been too many consultants in the game, but the Ontario Liberals said, play on. Senior staff was offside with their expense claims, but nobody blew the whistle, so play continued. Instead of insisting upon the best deal through a contract tender process, the Ontario government saw contracts handed out to firms with Liberal connections. Sometimes these connections were very cozy indeed. Why does a government spend more than $1 billion to develop its own computer system for health records independent of any other jurisdiction? We could have spent this money on our much-needed Oakville Hospital. Yet $1 billion later, and we have nothing, except longer lines for health care and a bunch of overstuffed consultants and senior bureaucrats living on easy street. So the Ontario government is caught in the glare. Everybody is watching. Certainly, if these types of actions occurred in sport, it would be no surprise to anyone that the leagues involved would lose their credibility and fans would cease to be interested. Now perhaps we can understand why people no longer vote. The Ontario PC's have called for a public inquiry into the mess at eHealth. It is necessary to get to the bottom of it, find out who is responsible and regain the public's trust. Frankly, I am shaken by the apparent size and depth of this scandal. Compare eHealth's $1 billion price tag, or about $80 per Ontarian, to the several hundred million dollars involved in the Federal Sponsorship Scandal, where Liberal-friendly ad agencies were given taxpayers money ostensibly to promote federal government events in Quebec, but funnelled the money back to Liberal Party coffers. The Gomery Inquiry exposed some nasty business in that scandal. It also found that not every Liberal, nor every government employee was involved. Similarly, an inquiry into eHealth would help clear the air and allow the Ontario government to move on and serve the public without the pall of scandal hanging over them. We in opposition exposed this scandalous behaviour by scouring spending records. However, it is the public that must be the ultimate watchdogs. The public will cast its judgement along with its ballot. RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America T THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION GRAHAM PAINE / OAKVILLE BEAVER LOOKING TO THE PAST: Jordan Thompson, 3, munches a cookie while trying her hand at painting under the watchful eye of her grandfather, local artist Don Morrison, whose works are often exhibited at Sovereign House in Bronte. That's where the Bronte Historical Society, every October, celebrates Trafalgar Day to recognize one of the biggest celebrities of 1800, Admiral Horatio Nelson, and to close for the season. The settlement at the mouth of the former Twelve-Mile now Bronte Creek was named Bronti, or Bronte, after Nelson's title, Duke of Bronte. An experiment in sleeplessness, a conspiracy against sleep ccording to Men's Health, I'm "limping through life with the cranial equivalent of a torn calf muscle." And, alas, I'm not alone. In a recent issue, the popular magazine examined how North Americans are "engaged in a society-wide experiment in sleep deprivation," sleeping on average almost 20 minutes less each night of the workweek than our previously sleep-deprived selves of 10 years ago. And it's killing us. Sleep, you see, is not an option, or a treat, or a luxury, or a complete waste of time, as some have come to view it. Sleep is essential. Sleep is our lifeblood, as important to our bodies and minds as food, hydration, air, sex and playoff baseball. I know what you're thinking: how can an essayist as erudite as me possibly lump sleep in with needs as fundamental as sex and playoff baseball? Well, according to the magazine -- and Dr. David Dinges, who studies shuteye for a living -- sleep is the anchor of our immune system. Further, sleep "stabilizes your waking brain, makes you more alert, and allows you to process information faster." While no one wants to sleep through life, it is important to sleep through one-third of life. Sleep gurus maintain that 90 per- A cent of the population needs seven to eight hours sleep each night; the remaining 10 percent, are apparently genetically wired to survive on less. To that end, everyone knows or has heard of someone who needs or needed very little sleep: Jay Leno, Napoleon, Jackie Gleason, Bill Clinton, and Albert Einstein. Einstein is reputed to have Andy Juniper needed only four or five hours a night. Mind you, he often nodded off at inappropriate times (like Ronald Reagan) and his lost last words, muttered in German on his deathbed to a nurse who had minimal grasp of the language, may well have been: "Finally. Some. Sleep." Which (naturally) brings us to me. Overtired, cranky, me. Because in this column, as regular readers will attest, all roads lead back to me. Now, researchers say there are myriad reasons why overtired types don't get enough sleep, everything from having a baby in the house, to stress, to the demands of work and life eating into your sleep time. But with me it's bigger than all that. With me, I swear, it's a sinister conspiracy, implicating every living and breathing entity existing under my roof, and even some non-living-breathing entities, all consorting to ensure that I never get a decent night of sleep. Consider: this morning one of the dogs had me up at 5 a.m. to go outside (that's the dog that will sleep until noon if you let him), while the other had kept me up until 2 a.m. with her unspeakable snoring. The night before, a son's barking cough ensured sleeplessness. Another night, around 3 a.m., the stove started beeping (no one in our house even knew that this stove had a beeper, let alone one that would go off in the middle of the night for no apparent reason). Oh, then there was the night when our other son and his friends decided to test a new hookah (water pipe) on the balcony (just off our bedroom). Seriously. I admit to shouting at them: "What the hookah you doing?" The bottom line is I'm dragging my bottom line. I'm limping through life with the cranial equivalent of a torn calf muscle. I'm experiencing the typical post-lunch crash at breakfast. I'm collapsing into a coma, mid-sentence. I'm zzzzzzzz. Andy Juniper can be visited at his website, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com.